Leabarjan perforator
By Douglas Henderson
Dear Jody,
Thanks for your 'e-mail' message, generated from my response to the Website.
As far as I know, I've been using Leabarjan perforators longer than anybody, since the early 1950's ... and on an almost daily basis. Beyond running ARTCRAFT Music Rolls since 1982, I've made countless rolls for concerts and performances at The Musical Wonder House (museum) around the corner, co-founded by Lois and Danilo Konvalinka and myself back in 1962. {Am still a co-owner of the collection but have been running The ARTCRAFT Studio on Lee St. since the Summer of 1986 ... someday we'll 'work-out' the partnership dissolution!)
My original machine is the 4-roll #5 ... and in later years I added the 16-roll #8-B, so have 2 running in the Studio, along with 2 Steinway & Sons grands: 7' AR Duo-Art elec. "reproducing" and a pedal 6'6" O. Having 2 Leabarjans gives me the opportunity to cut a "TEST STRIP" in the middle of a complex arranging problem, and see how it sounds, without disturbing the Master Roll.
I believe that only ARTCRAFT and Eric Bernhoft in San Fransisco. (dba UPRIGHT & GRAND Rolls) are frequent users of the Leabarjan equipment today, built from 1911-1927 ... and from 'parts' by a local former factory worker in Hamilton, Ohio up to the early 1950's. Eric, by the way, had been cutting with a pen-knife/graph paper style of a system he'd devised, then visited the Studio in 1986 and had me locate a #5 for him. [The AMICA club magazine display ad that appeared after his visit was my doing, at his request.]
If you - and your readers - are interested in Leabarjans, you have come to the right source. I have been in touch with the family that built them - now deceased - and have had visits from their relatives in recent times. One, who lives in Maine and whose occupation is a newspaper writer, did a comprehensive article on me for the Brunwick TIMES-RECORD [reprinted in the MBSI club magazine shortly thereafter]. I have letters and all sorts of information about The Leabarjan Manufacturing Company here, and demonstrate the machinery "in use" to the Studio visitors and customers.
The Leabarjan -- using my "Interpretive Arranging" methods -- transcends the electronic graph paper results from computer/MIDI arranging, which are really a return to the Turn of the Century methods, musically speaking. Being a hands-on machine, once learned, it's easy cut down to graduated "overlaps" that, in the ARTCRAFT case, allow for 128th of a note control, and the simulation of a specific KEYBOARD ATTACK. { That isn't possible with commercial roll methods. If one believes they are hearing Lhevinne on an Ampico, there are only two possibilities: a) they never heard his Columbia 78's made after the short Ampico period and/or b) they aren't astute musical listeners! The Ampico is pleasant, but "Lhevinne" isn't there. I couldn't achieve the same results with MIDI, graph paper, drafting boards ... and am probably the only person on-record to tell Max Kortlander at Imperial Industrial/ QRS in New York City that I wouldn't "learn" their "recording" piano, often photographed with J. L. Cook and other staffers. It put one back into the graph paper methods again, in spite of piano keys being attached to the perforator! }
An article I did in the 1980's - when The ARTCRAFT Studio opened - appeared in the AMICA club magazine, entitled "LEABARJAN LIVES!", in two parts. This featured some sharp photographs of the equipment when it was located at The Musical Wonder House.
The biggest article on the subject of Leabarjan history - complete with much material previously unpublished - appeared in Vol. I (4 issues) of my publication, THE PIANOLA QUARTERLY ... now in-progress with Vol. II. This is a permanent, or 'subscription series' type of publication, so can be ordered by YEAR @ 8.50 postpaid. (USA) - same price plus postage, abroad - and contains "more than you'd want to know" about the subject and history of these unusual machines, going into what they CAN DO and what they CAN'T ACCOMPLISH, due to their designs - and also in relation to the attributes & limitations of the Pianola action as well. I have colour pictures of the #5 and #5-8 in the illustrations that accompany this article, plus a number of "in-house" Leabarjan texts and reprints of advertising brochure tests.
THE PIANOLA QUARTERLY is the 'alternative' journal for those involved in mechanical music, and musical performances per se. (Just got a call from a VP of Steinway & Sons the other day about some information regarding the 9'6" Duo-Art demonstration "reproducing" Steinway grands ... so must be doing something right! Henry Z. Steinway, retired, was an early subscriber to the PQ and contributes information on a continuing basis.) By publishing "content" for the history & music field, and avoiding the 'mythology rehash' about "artists on rolls" being "authentic", the PQ is really finding an intelligent international audience. These are the people who LISTEN to music, those not wrapped up in social activities. The absence of "dated material" and costumed 'clubbies' puts the focus on the rolls, player actions, and the MUSIC itself. My articles often include FULL-PAGE pictures of rolls, annotated to show elements for the Pianolist to recognize during performance.
You might check out my article entitled "OVERDUBBING", which appeared in the Nov.-Dec. issue of the MBSI club magazine. This was originally written for the AMICA club, but got rejected. (One of the statements at the time was "too much Henderson" because I'd just completed a 6-part series in 1993 on operating a Player-Piano, also illustrated. Strange, there's never too much of that clique in AMICA, getting written up again and again, with the 'low' being a recent article called "The Case of The Missing Apostrophe" ... now ... what does that have to do with MUSIC or players??????) Anyway, "OVERDUBBING" has some things in it about the Leabarjan perforators as well.
It's impossible to 'divorce myself' from HOW I USE these machines from COMPANY HISTORY, really. My life has been spend studying rolls, playing them, and cutting Master Rolls.
Last night we attended a concert at Dover-Foxcroft, Maine (Arcady Festival - I appeared with Wm. Albright on their series last year, playing ARTCRAFT "Interpretive Arrangements" only). Among the highlights was Masanobu Ikemiya [simulated on my roll of PICKLES & PEPPERS RAG, interpretively] at the keyboard on a Steinway Model 'M' and his 10-piece NYC 'Ragtime Orchestra'. He has a player upright and purchased one of the 44 Aeolian demonstration rolls (PRIMO) I released - see the AMICA '93 club series about that roll, article #5 of 6 - and armed with my 'limited edition' roll and the early Harms score, came up with a version of RHAPSODY IN BLUE that sounded as if the acoustic Blue Label Gershwin 78 had "come to life". His technique on staccato repetition and accenting was 'beyond Gershwin' at the keyboard, if one knows the early Victor recording. This was a case where a one-of-a-kind Duo-Art roll (never released to the public) was used to create a 1996 performance that not only equaled the Gershwin original, but surpassed it musically. We'll be talking about this performance for years to come! [Don't confuse the roll with the FAKE-Gershwin/"Armbruster" one that Aeolian dumped upon the naive public, which has the composer's name on it. The PRIMO roll was used with a 2nd piano - or orchestra - at Aeolian Hall, and no serial number exists for this arrangement. I "sold out" of the PRIMO roll immediately, but you can hear the stellar version on my AR via the Cassette: "Niantic Ragtime Festival" @ 2.00 plus 1.50 shipping ... or get in touch with one of the other 43 ARTCRAFT Duo-Art roll customers.]
The above should give you some material about Leabarjan perforators. I even have some rolls that were made by a short-lived Maine company, called "Pine Tree Rolls", in the 1920's. Some were cut on a Leabarjan directly, and others were farmed out to the 'duplicating service' that the Ohio manufacturer offered for quantity production runs. {A PQ article will be forthcoming about this cottage industry for music rolls.}
Guess that best thing is to subscribe to the PQ and "learn it all". Having 45 years of daily experience in this field - and giving museum tours for 23 years also - gave me an opportunity to meet and deal with people long gone today. My player activities began BEFORE the clubs started up, for players, and are based upon experience you can't get from a book. One of the reasons for publishing the PQ is to reach another generation, especially since there's so much baloney about 'artists' on rolls these days. [One of my Editorials in the PQ which really went over with musicians was called "Jelly Roll Morton was A White Woman?" - an antidote to the fraudulent history that the Disklavier P.R. is spilling out today. You can't "discover" Morton if he weren't there, can you? - ha-ha!]
Hope to hear from you again soon, and do visit the Studio if you come to Wiscasset, Maine.
Regards in haste (signed), Douglas
L. Douglas Henderson
dba ARTCRAFT Music Rolls
The PIANOLA Quarterly |
(Message sent Thu 8 Aug 1996, 15:38:57 GMT, from time zone GMT-0400.) |
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